FINDINGS A UCLA-led study comparing brain cells known as astrocytes in humans and mice found that mouse astrocytes are more resilient to oxidative stress, a damaging imbalance that is a mechanism behind many neurological disorders. A lack of oxygen triggers molecular repair mechanisms in these mouse astrocytes but not in human astrocytes. In contrast, inflammation activates immune-response genes in human astrocytes but not mouse astrocytes. BACKGROUND Although the mouse is a ubiquitous laboratory model used in research for neurological diseases, results from studies in mice are not always applicable to humans. In fact, more than 90% of drug candidates that show preclinical promise for neurological disorders ultimately fail when tested in humans, in part ...

Crude oil production and natural gas withdrawals in the United States have lessened the country's dependence on foreign oil and provided financial relief to U.S. consumers, but have also raised longstanding concerns about environmental damage, such as groundwater contamination. A researcher in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences, and a team of scientists from Penn State, have developed a new machine learning technique to holistically assess water quality data in order to detect groundwater samples likely impacted by recent methane leakage during oil and gas production. Using that model, the team concluded that unconventional drilling ...

Irvine, CA - June 25, 2021 - New research from the University of California, Irvine reveals how the circadian regulation of glucose production in the liver is lost during lung cancer progression, and how the resulting increase in glucose production may fuel cancer cell growth. The new study titled, "Glucagon regulates the stability of REV-ERBα to modulate hepatic glucose production in a model of lung cancer-associated cachexia," published today in Science Advances, illustrates how the circadian clock is regulated under conditions of stress such as during lung cancer progression and cancer-associated tissue wasting ...

After suffering a stroke, patients often are unable to use the arm on their affected side. Sometimes, they end up holding it close to their body, with the elbow flexed. In a new study, Northwestern University and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab researchers have discovered that, in an attempt to adapt to this impairment, muscles actually lose sarcomeres -- their smallest, most basic building blocks. Stacked end to end (in series) and side to side (in parallel), sarcomeres make up the length and width of muscle fibers. By imaging biceps muscles with three noninvasive methods, the researchers found that stroke patients had fewer sarcomeres along the length ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center are studying a potential new chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy (CAR-T cell therapy) treatment for multiple myeloma. Their findings were published on Friday, June 24, in The Lancet. "CAR-T cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that involves harnessing the power of a person's own immune system by engineering their T cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells," says Yi Lin, M.D., a Mayo Clinic hematologist and lead author of the study. Dr. Lin says the Food and Drug Administration approved ...

The promise of 5G Internet of Things (IoT) networks requires more scalable and robust communication systems -- ones that deliver drastically higher data rates and lower power consumption per device. Backscatter radios ? passive sensors that reflect rather than radiate energy ? are known for their low-cost, low-complexity, and battery-free operation, making them a potential key enabler of this future although they typically feature low data rates and their performance strongly depends on the surrounding environment. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Nokia Bell Labs, and Heriot-Watt University have found a low-cost way for backscatter radios to support high-throughput communication and 5G-speed Gb/sec data transfer using only a single transistor when previously ...

Three years ago, Arthur Ashkin won the Nobel Prize for inventing optical tweezers, which use light in the form of a high-powered laser beam to capture and manipulate particles. Despite being created decades ago, optical tweezers still lead to major breakthroughs and are widely used today to study biological systems. However, optical tweezers do have flaws. The prolonged interaction with the laser beam can alter molecules and particles or damage them with excessive heat. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have created a new version of optical tweezer technology that fixes this problem, a development ...

Want a smartphone that stretches, takes damage, and still doesn't miss a call? A team of Virginia Tech researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Macromolecules Innovation Institute has created a new type of soft electronics, paving the way for devices that are self-healing, reconfigurable, and recyclable. These skin-like circuits are soft and stretchy, sustain numerous damage events under load without losing electrical conductivity, and can be recycled to generate new circuits at the end of a product's life. Led by Assistant Professor Michael Bartlett, the team recently published its findings in END ...

Scientists from the National University of Science and Technology "MISIS" (NUST MISIS) in cooperation with their colleagues from the Siberian Federal University and the Research and Production Centre of Magnetic Hydrodynamics (Krasnoyarsk) have developed a technology for producing a unique heat-resistant aluminium alloy with improved durability. According to the researchers, this new alloy could replace more expensive and heavier copper conductors in aircraft and high-speed rail transport. The study results were published in an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, the Materials Letters. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167577X2100896X) Researchers have created a method for producing ...

Night and day, oil tankers, yachts and cargo ships stacked with shipping containers ply the 80-kilometer (50-mile) waterway through the jungles of Panama between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean: about 40 ships every 24 hours. But even though the Canal is fed by freshwater rivers that empty through the locks on each end, a system that generally prevents fish and smaller marine invertebrates from hopping from ocean to ocean, some still manage to get through, clinging to the hulls of ships. Other invading species arrive from far-flung ports, dumped with ballast water as ships prepare for transit. "Panama is a major shipping hub that provides amazing opportunities to test key ideas about marine invasions by studying ...

A team of engineers and clinicians has developed an ultra-thin, inflatable device that can be used to treat the most severe forms of pain without the need for invasive surgery. The device, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, uses a combination of soft robotic fabrication techniques, ultra-thin electronics and microfluidics. The device is so thin - about the width of a human hair - that it can be rolled up into a tiny cylinder, inserted into a needle, and implanted into the epidural space of the spinal column, the same area ...

A new electrode that could free up 20% more light from organic light-emitting diodes has been developed at the University of Michigan. It could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops, or make next-gen televisions and displays much more energy efficient. The approach prevents light from being trapped in the light-emitting part of an OLED, enabling OLEDs to maintain brightness while using less power. In addition, the electrode is easy to fit into existing processes for making OLED displays and light fixtures. "With our approach, you can do it all in ...

More corn is grown in the United States than any other crop, but we only use a small part of the plant for food and fuel production; once people have harvested the kernels, the inedible leaves, stalks and cobs are left over. If this plant matter, called corn stover, could be efficiently fermented into ethanol the way corn kernels are, stover could be a large-scale, renewable source of fuel. "Stover is produced in huge amounts, on the scale of petroleum," said Whitehead Institute Member and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) biology professor Gerald Fink. "But there are enormous technical challenges to using them cheaply to create biofuels and other important chemicals." And so, year after year, most of the woody corn material is left in the fields to rot. Now, a ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a tablet-sized device that can reliably detect multiple COVID-19 antibodies and biomarkers simultaneously. Initial results show the test can distinguish between antibodies produced in response to SARS-CoV-2 and four other coronaviruses with 100% accuracy. The researchers are now working to see if the easy-to-use, energy-independent, point-of-care device can be used to predict the severity of a COVID-19 infection or a person's immunity against variants of the virus. Having also recently shown the same "D4 assay" platform can detect Ebola infections a day earlier than the gold standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, the researchers say the results show how flexible the technology can be to adapt to other ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Boosting production of biofuels such as ethanol could be an important step toward reducing global consumption of fossil fuels. However, ethanol production is limited in large part by its reliance on corn, which isn't grown in large enough quantities to make up a significant portion of U.S. fuel needs. To try to expand biofuels' potential impact, a team of MIT engineers has now found a way to expand the use of a wider range of nonfood feedstocks to produce such fuels. At the moment, feedstocks such as straw and woody plants are difficult to use for biofuel production because they first need to be broken down to fermentable sugars, a process that releases numerous byproducts that are toxic to yeast, the microbes most commonly used to produce biofuels. The ...

Tuberculosis is one of the top ten causes of death worldwide, infecting about one-quarter of the world's population. Although it is treatable, the rise of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis poses a major threat to global health security, and has been declared by the World Health Organization as a global health emergency. Reduced access to diagnosis and treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to dramatically increase the number of tuberculosis infections. This will set global efforts to tackle the disease back several years. Tuberculosis is caused by infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a bacterium that infects human lungs and other organs by using complex molecular ...

When Winter Storm Uri hit, many Texans lost power from February 14-20, resulting in losses of lives and economic activity, and damages to their homes that for some are still not completely repaired. Now, four months later as demand for electricity has increased at the start of the summer amid tight supply, Texans continue to prioritize improvements to the power grid, albeit with doubt as to whether the Texas Legislature and Governor can get the job done. In a survey by the Hobby School of Public Affairs and UH Energy at the University of Houston fielded between May 13-24, 1,500 individuals in Texas aged 18 and older responded to a series of questions regarding their experience during Winter Storm Uri and their evaluation ...

BOSTON - At the recent 2021 Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) presented positive updates on their trials of the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine to safely and significantly lower blood sugars. In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease which currently has no cure, T cells attack the pancreas and destroy its ability to create insulin, a hormone vital in allowing glucose to enter cells to produce energy. In prior work, Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director ...

A new study by UC Davis researchers confirms the low likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 contamination on hospital surfaces is infectious. END ...

Scientists from the University of Michigan have developed an innovative way to use NASA satellite data to track the movement of tiny pieces of plastic in the ocean. Microplastics form when plastic trash in the ocean breaks down from the sun's rays and the motion of ocean waves. These small flecks of plastic are harmful to marine organisms and ecosystems. Microplastics can be carried hundreds or thousands of miles away from the source by ocean currents, making it difficult to track and remove them. Currently, the main source of information about the location ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 24, 2021—The American Thyroid Association, the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, the European Thyroid Association, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging released a joint statement on three key topics addressing controversies in thyroid cancer care. The joint statement is published in the peer-reviewed journal Thyroid®, the official journal of the American Thyroid Association® (ATA®).Click here to read the statement now. An inter-societal working group addressed the current controversies and evolving concepts in three main areas: peri-operative risk stratification; the role of diagnostic radioactive iodine ...

Toronto, ON - Despite research showing associations between anabolic steroid use and criminal offending, the possibility of a similar association between legal performance-enhancing substance use, such as creatine, and criminal offending remained unknown. A new study published online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence now shows that both forms of performance-enhancing substance use is longitudinally associated with criminal offending among U.S. adults. The study, which analyzed a sample of over 9,000 U.S. participants from the National Longitudinal Study ...

Liza Makowski, PhD, professor in the Department of Medicine and the UTHSC Center for Cancer Research, has long been interested in how the immune system is altered by obesity and how this impacts cancer risk and treatment. "Obesity is complex, because it can cause both inflammation and activate counter-inflammation pathways leading to immunosuppression," Dr. Makowski said. "How obesity impacts cancer treatments is understudied." Obese patients with breast cancer often have worse outcomes than non-obese patients. However, exciting developments are being made in other cancers that may also hold promise for treating breast cancer. In studies of ...

"Fit for 55": under this heading, the EU Commission will specify the implementation of the European Green Deal on 14 July. This refers to the more ambitious climate policy announced, with 55 instead of 40 percent emission reduction by 2030 (relative to 1990), and net-zero emissions in 2050. Coordination between the 27 EU states is expected to be difficult since unanimity is usually required here for sweeping changes. An economic model study by the Berlin-based climate research institute MCC (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) examines how to achieve good results under such conditions. The study has just been published in the renowned Journal of Environmental ...

New SARS-CoV-2 variants are spreading rapidly, and there are fears that current COVID-19 vaccines won't protect against them. The latest in a series of structural studies of the SARS-CoV-2 variants' "spike" protein, led by Bing Chen, PhD, at Boston Children's Hospital, reveals new properties of the Alpha (formerly U.K.) and Beta (formerly South Africa) variants. Of note, it suggests that current vaccines may be less effective against the Beta variant. Spike proteins, on the surface of SARS CoV-2, are what enable the virus to attach to and enter our cells, and all current vaccines are directed against them. The new study, published in Science on June 24, used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) ...